Juniors Andrea Duvall and Christy Mebust look back on the 2010 preseason

Kristy Mebust (pictured) and Andrea Duvall are this season's latest Dig This contributers

Aug. 30, 2010

After 22 sessions of intense workouts, we are finally done with the 2010 preseason! The team reunited on August 12th and began with meetings before the start of preseason. We had six days of double sessions in the first week. The week finished with a relaxing team trip to Coach Campbell's lake house, a recovery day, a scrimmage and the annual team dinner at Buca di Beppo. The next week started with three days of double sessions and two 5 a.m. practices.

A typical day began with a team breakfast at 7 a.m. in the Farinon Dining Hall, a morning conditioning session and practice, team lunch, an afternoon practice, team lift with Coach Potts and team dinner and bonding. Each morning during conditioning we spent an hour on Fisher Field doing various workouts to improve our mental and physical toughness. Some of these
workouts included sprint laps, hills, stadiums and the infamous timed mile. These were usually followed by dynamic stretching and agility exercises. We then proceeded into Kamine Gym to reacquaint ourselves with the fundamentals of volleyball after a long summer. As the week went on, we progressed to more advanced drills and intra-squad scrimmages.

Throughout the preseason we met with Lafayette's lifting coach six times following our afternoon sessions. During the spring, these sessions were an hour long and were very exhausting because our goal was to build muscle and increase explosiveness. However, since we are in preseason, the goal is to maintain rather than build. Therefore, the lifts are shorter and less intense in order to introduce the exercises to the freshmen.

The scrimmage was a good opportunity for us to evaluate the team's progress over the first week. This preseason we played against East Stroudsburg University, a team just up the road from Lafayette. An exciting aspect to our team this year is the depth that we have in various positions, and the scrimmage allowed different line-ups to be tested against an opponent. We played well, yet it highlighted the areas of our game that need improvement. Those shortcomings were heavily addressed during the second half of preseason.

Tonight is our first regular season exhibition and the 15 days of rigorous training have allowed us to be as mentally and physically prepared for the start of season as possible. Our team is looking strong and we are excited to see how the next few months play out. Can't wait to see you at our matches!

Lafayette Athletics, as a partner in the mission of the College, provides an incredibly effective learning experience for student-athletes through competitive NCAA Division I athletics. Lafayette sponsors 23 varsity sports with more than 600 student-athletes.